Derf's Grotto

[fung_derf]

Sorry newmed, but I've got to save this very honest post for later....so many here need to read it.....I don't know what is wrong with people on the internet.

newmedman

12/10/20 12:13 PM

#190171 RE: $5.95akadawson-m #190119

Let me tell you a little story....

I logged onto this site for the first time 10 years ago because of the rumblings about legalized cannabis in the states and Canada...

At that time we were just coming out of huge economic downturn, but I had been working through it all and met some people in 2009 that got me into the real stock market with money that I had saved which wasn't doing anything for me. I had annuities and IRA's long before that but I wanted to learn how to trade individual stocks and the cannabis stuff intrigued me. GW Pharm was the only real 'pot' stock I had owned then and I went out of my way through my broker to buy it because it traded on the London exchange.

web searches brought me here and when I first saw the site, it looked like a candy store to me. I had no idea what the OTC market was or how it functioned but I opened a trading account and started to play. LOL I'll never forget my broker telling me that he wanted nothing to do with it and seriously advising me against it.

I immediately got caught up in all the message board hoopla and started buying into a few 'so called' stocks and posting about it. I bought into the whole basher, naked short seller thing and pumped the POS companies that I owned. I signed up for daily promotions and believed all the bullshit that they spewed. I fought vigorously on the boards with anyone who said I owned a piece of garbage.

I spent my time skirting the TOS, being banned from boards and even a couple short stints in iHub jail. Nothing deterred me. I was on a mission. Now fortunately for me I learned very early on about how pump and dumps work but didn't even realize what it was. I just thought I was a master trader, buying low, selling high, rinse and repeat. I never really got caught holding the bag but I also never let on to my message board buddies what I was doing. Yes I lost money but I made a ton more.

I learned the hard way about taxes as well. Posting realized short term gains of 50k + and having to give more than half of it back was something I wasn't expecting when I started and needless to say almost all the stocks I was in then are defunct now and lot's of people lost lots of money. Looking back I still feel like I was part of the reason why people lost money in more than one of them.

My epiphany came when I dug up an unknown company at the time that barely even traded. I liked their business model and even started a board for them here where some of us would gather and talk about how great things would be if more people knew about them and it would just trade. The only volume in the stock for over a year was probably just me and a few others buying a few shares at a time. I managed to eek out around 500 shares over a years worth of bidding on the open market.

Then the guy who was the CEO of the company popped up on our board one day and the red flags went up for the DD Fraud team. It became an all out verbal brawl after that. A bit later, for whatever reason, the guy who was the new CEO appeared on CNBC to tout the company and the stock which was never really traded suddenly shot to 200 in one day. I sold all mine when it went over 100 but still hung on to fight against all the people who said there was something really wrong with it all, even accusing me of being an insider when I said that I had shares I purchased previously. It was not pretty.

I also had to come back to all those people and apologize to them later when it turned out they were right about it all being a scam along with my past transgressions. I never bought an OTC stock after that, I was done. I realized that the money I had made was not because the underlying company was doing well, it was because other rubes had purchased my stock and were now going to have to take the loss.

Then I went back and looked at some other places where stories of people losing small fortunes really started to hit home for me and I felt even worse.

I figured at that point it was time for me to repent. I took up a couple of projects that I knew were outright scams and hammered them relentlessly because I didn't want good people losing their ass to them. It wasn't just 'this stock is a scam' bullshit either. It was research, insider stock sales, court filings, background checks, building permits, city council meetings and much more.

All documented provable claims that went completely ignored. I was even accused of being paid to say bad things about the companies. I even ran into a woman that completely doxxed me. I had to change all my social media accounts, email addresses and personal accounts because I wasn't sure how low she was going to stoop and I was just getting set up to open my own business at that time.

I gave up after all that. When all the proof I was showing people proved to be actual fact and the stocks got suspended and revoked not one person came and said, you were right Newmed. Instead they still accused me of being in some sort of naked short selling scheme that ruined their pipe dream.

At least when I saw the light I went and apologized and gave it a go to try to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

If it weren't for forums like this, I would have been long gone from this site but I'm willing to accept that I'm not the smartest one in the bunch and still interact with people who I at one time despised for no other reason than my own greed. Those people don't hold a grudge against me either and are still more than willing to put me in my place when I get carried away and say stupid shit like I am so prone to do.

The only difference is now, I accept it, apologize if I made an error in judgement and I will never have to sweat an OTC stock ever again.

What they do is thankless business and you can be damn sure that nobody is getting paid to bash your stock when fact the opposite is true. It's the promoters who pocket the cash.

and as far as my gains from penny stocks go? I was stupid, trying to get rich quick. My original 2009 buys that I still hold included companies like Netflix that was trading around 10 a stub. Hell, GW, the reason why I first came here was under 2 dollars.

That ten grand that I opened my original Scottrade account with would have been way better served just dumping back into what I already owned.

Though I consider my time here a more than valuable experience and that's why I always like to come to share my stories because I have a fuckton of them.

It might help someone someday, but more often than not It's just me babbling.

be well dawson...